


Pink Vase

by RomeoandAntoinette



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Conversations, First Kiss, M/M, Morning Cuddles, Mutual Pining, Reminiscing, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25671643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RomeoandAntoinette/pseuds/RomeoandAntoinette
Summary: At any time, any place, people can fall in love with each other. For Snake and Otacon, that love finally blooms in a tiny Florida motel room after Snake asks his partner one simple question. [A work for Otasune Week 2020] [Philanthropy-era] [Snake/Otacon]
Relationships: Otacon/Solid Snake
Comments: 3
Kudos: 65





	Pink Vase

**Author's Note:**

> As you saw, this story is actually a fic for Otasune Week 2020! This fic is for the day two prompt "Bloom." I hope you all enjoy this interpretation!

“Hal. What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

Otacon blinked at the ceiling before slowly lolling his head to the left where Snake, cigarette in hand, was supine in bed beside him.

“That’s a sudden question,” he said with a laugh. He rolled over until he was reclining on his side and propped up on his spindly elbow. “What brought this on?”

“Just curious,” Snake replied while blowing a long and steady stream of smoke overhead.

Otacon wrinkled his nose and pretended to be bothered, but if he was being truthful, he didn’t hate the smell of tobacco as much as he had as a kid. He’d grown quite fond of it since he’d started traveling with Snake and as their organization, Philanthropy, steadily gained traction as an anti-proliferation NGO. The covert nature of their operations meant that they spent a lot of time with each other and not many other people, save for the occasional rendezvous with Nastasha Romanenko or Mei Ling.

As a result, they had become quite exemplary at reading each other’s emotions even when they were hidden in thickets of silence.

“You’re just curious?” Otacon parroted, his tone heightened with obvious speculation. “Come on. You expect me to buy that?”

Snake took one last, long draw of his cigarette before stabbing it into an ashtray on the nightstand. The cheap motel that they were staying in had advertised that smoking wasn’t allowed, but if the used ashtrays around the room were any indication, then they clearly didn’t mind.

“I guess…I’ve been doing some thinking lately,” Snake confessed. His voice was lower and slower than usual. This meant he was serious. Starkly serious.

Otacon adjusted his tone accordingly.

“Okay,” he said cautiously.

He reached up and laid a palm across his partner’s chest. Beneath scarred skin and sinew that had been perfected by a test tube, a very real heart thrummed loud and proud beneath his cloned flesh. A human heart.

“Talk to me, then,” Otacon urged.

“I asked you first,” he said after another long drag.

Otacon blinked. “Huh?”

Icy blue eyes landed on him like twin snowflakes. The gaze was cold, but as Otacon knew by now, easy to melt.

“I asked you my question first,” Snake grumbled. “Talk to me about that.”

Still not entirely understanding what was going on, Otacon acquiesced to the request and started to think back. “Hm…well, let me think a moment.”

The soldier furrowed his brow. “You have to think about it?”

“Well ...yeah, of course, I do,” Otacon replied as he sat up and reclined against the headboard. He was still dressed in his pajamas and wearing one of Snake’s old sweatshirts, which was slightly stretched in the collar and sleeves. His glasses were still on the nightstand, meaning he had to squint more than usual. “I want to give your weird, random question an actual answer.”

Snake cracked a smile. “You’re right. It must be hard. Think back on your twenty-seven years of life staring at computer screens in dark rooms and try to pick just one.”

The seriousness in his tone had partially faded. Apparently, he was feeling frisky enough to make jokes.

The ashy-haired man pointed a finger. “Don’t get smart with me. I may not be as old as you or as…seasoned of an outdoorsman as you are, but I’ve had plenty of meaningful experiences in my life.”

Snake shrugged. “Sure, you have.”

“I mean it!” Otacon replied, voice hitching.

Snake rolled his bottom lip between his teeth to avoid laughing. He reached for another cigarette and wedged it between his lips. “I believe you.”

Faster than he could light it, Otacon flicked the cigarette right out of his mouth. It hit the oyster pink wall, which was riddled with paint chips, with a dull tap. The gesture created a faint line of ash across Snake’s white, Iditarod 2003 T-shirt.

It was a Sunday morning just after dawn, and even in the middle of some podunk stretch in Florida, the sunrise hit the palm trees and shallow mountains at the perfect angle so that the right amount of light filtered through the crevices and valleys. The tropical humidity created a haze that diffused the rays into a hazy, pink cloud that hung across the horizon like a canopy.

Even the asphalt parking lot right outside their window, which had been depressingly hideous in the mid-afternoon light when they’d rolled in the previous day, was a shade of lavender thanks to the midmorning shadow.

Their room was a small, one-bedroom set-up with pink walls, turquoise furniture, and what had to equate to a haystack’s worth of wicker accessories. Tucked in the corner near the curtain-concealed bathroom was an old CRT television that played the Channel 2 morning news, but without any sound. Neither one of them could find the remote to change the channel either.

It was far from luxurious, but it was a roof over their heads and a front door that locked. At least the set-up gave them plenty of time to talk.

After a few moments of thinking and tapping his fingers thoughtfully over Snake’s quickening heartbeat, the younger man came had an epiphany that made his entire head jerk upright. “Oh, I know!”

Then, as if realizing he had spoken too soon, he recanted the statement with a laugh. “Actually, never mind, let me think about…”

Snake saw his moment to pounce and took it. “No way. What did you think of?”

“It’s stupid,” Otacon groaned. “You’ll laugh.”

“Maybe,” Snake said with a flirtatious grin, “But tell me anyway.”

The cocky sentiment earned him a look. It was a look Snake knew very well, but could never read.

“You don’t do much bartering, do you, David?” Otacon asked with an arched brow.

The man chuckled and pulled both his arms up so his hands could lace behind his neck and cradle his head. It also showed off the impressive musculature of his arms, which he noticed Otacon did not avert his eyes from.

“I’m usually pretty good at getting what I want,” Snake teased.

Case in point, after a few moments of silent staring, Otacon started and looked away.

Obviously bashful about being caught red-handed, he caved to the request with a mighty sigh. “Okay, fine.”

Snake listened carefully as Otacon cleared his throat and let his gaze wander to the ceiling.

“So, apparently, I wasn’t actually born un the U.S.,” Hal started, already fingering jaw anxiously. “I was born in a base in Afghanistan and lived there with my dad and my biological mom for a while. They–I mean, _he_ was definitely developing something for some organization. I was really young, so I don’t remember much about it. When my dad remarried and we were making room for Julie—his new wife, I found a bunch of albums and pictures from when I was a kid. One of them had my birth certificate in it. I would have asked somebody else about it, but there was nobody to turn to but him. I was kind of a pushover as a teenager and something about him still really intimidated me…so when he said he didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t press him. But, yeah.”

Snake wasn’t sure where the story was going but nodded along and silently encouraged his partner to continue.

“Anyway, I have no memories of living there…except one,” Otacon said. “I didn’t realize it was a memory from my time there, but after I saw that certificate and lined up the dates, I knew it had to be.”

“So, that would mean it’s your first memory ever, right?” Snake clarified. “Or, at least one of them.”

“Yeah,” Otacon said, relaxing slightly thanks to his companion’s sincere intrigue. “It left a mark, that’s for sure.”

“What was it?” he asked, Snake’s voice raspy despite the lack of cigarette. “The memory, I mean.”

Otacon swallowed before continuing.

“I remember being in a shack somewhere,” he confessed. “Or, maybe it was a warehouse? I’m not sure. Anyway, this must sound crazy, but it was actually so cold that it was snowing.”

Snake’s chest rolled as a chuckle left him. “Yeah. Not many people know it, but Afghanistan gets cold enough that snow is not unusual in winter. I’ve had buddies that have even seen avalanches there, although I’ve never had the privilege.”

Otacon laughed at that. “ _This_ was not an avalanche, but boy, you’re right about all that snow.”

His gray eyes lowered from the ceiling to stare directly ahead at the wall in front of them. It was as if an invisible film that only Otacon could see was being projected on the wall in front of them. Meanwhile, Snake remained focused on watching his partner’s movements for any signs of protest.

“Somehow, I’d found my way outside and to some kind of shed after playing in the snow for a bit,” he continued. “I don’t know what the building was supposed to be used for, but there wasn’t anything interesting inside. Just some old tools and a workbench. I didn’t mind it though. I think I was just happy to be out of the cold.”

The admission caused Snake to chew his lip. He wondered what kind of environment allowed a kid to just run around and play in the middle of a military base, especially one that seemed to be so controversial in nature that even Snake didn’t know about it.

He also imaged a child version of Otacon in dorky glasses and puffy snow pants running around and rolling in the snow like a giggly polar bear. The thoughts alone caused his chest to ache.

“I sat down near the window to rest for a bit, and when I looked up, I saw a spider web,” Otacon said. “But it wasn’t a normal web. Each strand was completely frozen. The frost had coated it like a sealant. When I reached out to touch it, it wasn’t sticky. It was solid. It was like a glass sculpture just…suspended in air.”

Snake reached out and rubbed a hand up and down his companion’s spine. The warmth of bare skin combined with his memory of the freezing cold caused Otacon to involuntarily shiver.

“I didn’t know about gravity or the physics of the world yet, but seeing something suspended weightlessly in the air was … it was exciting to me,” he confessed, chuckling at the admission.

“Did you show anyone?” Snake asked, then felt immediately childish about it. It wasn’t like he’d found a porno magazine behind a bus stop trash can. It was a spider web.

Otacon shook his head. “No. I didn’t want to bring it up. What if someone remembered the shed and decided to go in, saw the web and destroyed it? I didn’t want that. You’re the only other person I’ve told about it.”

Snake nodded, hanging on each of Otacon’s words.

“I know it’s not some big, controversial government secret or scandalous gossip or anything, but at the time? It felt huge,” Otacon said. “I was looking at someone nobody else had seen. It was my secret place.”

“A secret place, huh…” Snake repeated, his voice soft and far-off.

His statement wasn’t a question, but a verbal expression of a moment of self-introspection. Snake knew exactly what his partner met.

“It was like finding a crop circle,” Otacon elaborated with another puff of laughter. “For a minute, I was convinced I’d experienced something nobody else had. Like I’d discovered magic.”

A pregnant silence stretched between them.

“Anyway, that’s my memory,” Otacon concluded.

The soldier’s palm remained still on Otacon’s back, finding refuge at the base of his spine. The programmer didn’t seem to mind the touch. In fact, he even seemed to melt into it as he leaned over his partner, who was still fully reclined against the mattress. “Hey. You didn’t laugh.”

The soldier smiled up at his partner warmly. “I said I’d ‘maybe’ laugh.”

A grin stretched across Otacon’s face, causing his cheeks to dimple slightly. “See, I was about to applaud your gentlemanliness.”

“Hey, you know better than that,” Snake challenged.

The two shared a soft peal of laughter.

“Okay, now you have to tell me your memory,” Otacon said as he gave his companion’s chest a firm pat.

Snake folded both arms back behind his head and leaned against the headboard, causing it to creak treacherously.

“If I had to pick one…I’d say it was the first time that one of my sled dogs had her own litter,” Snake revealed.

Otacon gasped. “No way! You actually had a dog give birth when you were a musher?”

“When I first started out, at least,” Snake replied. “Don’t worry, I had no interest in breeding dogs. In fact, I didn’t even know she was pregnant when I adopted her.”

“Do you remember her name?” Otacon asked.

“Well, they always give the dogs temporary names before they go up for adoption,” he replied lowly. “I don’t remember her original one. I always gave the dogs unique names, though. It’s part of the bonding process. I don’t believe in treating animals like assets. Anyone who says that it’s better to have distance between you and your dogs has never been a musher. When you and your team are all alone out there in the wilderness, your bond is sacred. It’s all you have.”

Otacon nodded, completely captivated.

“Anyway, I ended up naming her Laika,” Snake said. “You know, in honor of the first dog to do to space.”

Otacon nodded sadly. “Right. She was the first dog to ride in a Russian rocket. A real space hero. But…the real Laika wasn’t a husky like all of your dogs were.”

The hardened soldier smiled at the mere mention of his canine companions.

“You’re right,” Snake said. “The real Laika wasn’t a husky. She was a mongrel that was found roaming around Moscow. Yet, when I saw my Laika for the first time…I don’t know. Something about the name fit.”

Otacon rested his chin in his hand and nodded in understanding.

“Plus,” Snake added, “It’s a pretty name, I think.”

The engineer’s lips parted slightly at the admission, but he didn’t question further. He stayed completely silent while his partner continued his tale.

“Anyway, I noticed one a day a few weeks later that she was having a harder time moving through the snow and keeping up with the rest of the team,” Snake said. “She was also eating a ton, especially after exercise. I took her to a kennel in the closest town. They had a vet with ultrasound equipment, and they told me she was pregnant with a whole litter.”

Otacon’s hand flew from his chin to his mouth. “What did you do?”

“The kennel offered to hold her until she had her pups, but they told me all they would really do is hang up a privacy tarp and let her whelp when the time came,” Snake said. “They said she didn’t have any health problems that could cause unforeseeable complications, and even if there were, the tiny little vet office wasn’t equipped to handle any major surgeries or operations. All things considered, there really wasn’t much difference between her being there or back at the cabin, which at least was a place she was used to.”

This confession earned a knowing grin from the engineer.

“You mean you figured she’d be more comfortable at home,” Otacon supplemented.

Snake turned his head slightly to hide a light blush. “Yeah, basically. So, that’s what we did. We went home and I cleaned out a storage closet I barely used. I sanitized it and packed that thing with tons of blankets and pillows. It was dark and private, which is exactly what she needed. Of course, I didn’t take her out for any long trips. Other than basic walks, I didn’t make her do anything strenuous.

“Then, one day, she started to whelp and went right to the closet,” Snake said. “I was in the shower when I heard her. I swear to you, Hal, I’ve never gotten dressed faster in my life.”

Otacon laughed. “Jeez, I can imagine! Then what happened?”

“I just made sure she had water and food,” Snake said. “Laika was a trooper, and other than the occasional cry, she powered through it. If I’d been asleep, I might have not even woken up.”

His eyes widened at that statement. Given Snake’s line of work, the soldier was incredibly fine-tuned to detect all his surroundings. Even the slightest sound, like a spare footstep or a snapping twig, was enough to alert him of an additional presence. For something to subvert that, Otacon knew, was incredible.

“And…?” he asked.

“Then she went quiet,” Snake said. “Completely silent. I was scared until I heard a bunch of little cries. When I pulled back the curtain, there she was. She was licking the heads of her puppies. She did her job well. All of them were already wiggling like crazy. None of them needed any help breathing or anything.”

The thought alone made Otacon coo.

“How many puppies were there?” he asked, practically starry-eyed.

“That’s the incredible thing,” Snake said. “There were ten.”

 _“Ten puppies!”_ Otacon said, his voice whispery in shrill delight. “That sounds like a lot. Is that a typical litter for a husky?”

“Not at all,” Snake said. “Back when I took her to the vet, they said a typical litter is about four to six.”

“Wow,” Otacon said. “That must have really been a sight to see.”

The man nodded, causing tufts of artificial brunet hair to fall in his face. “It really was. It … was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Otacon was quick to reach over and help brush his unruly hair back into place. The gesture earned a pleasant hum from Snake, then a heavy blush upon realizing he’d vocalized his delight out loud. For the second time that evening. Otacon witnessed the rare sight of the infamous Solid Snake going completely red in the face.

“I can imagine,” Otacon said. While a smile remained on his face, his brow still puckered in confusion. “I don’t get it though. I mean, why did you ask that question anyway?”

Snake was silent; Otacon kept pressing.

“Did something remind you of Laika?”

“No,” Snake rasped, eyes averted to the bubblegum pink curtain that concealed the bathroom.

“So, what then?” Otacon asked, carefully to keep his tone in and inoffensive.

“I don’t know why I asked,” Snake finally admitted.

The engineer bit his lip at the vague admission. The answer didn’t do much good at…well, answering Otacon’s question. Then again, he supposed that it didn’t really matter why the question had popped into the soldier’s mind at all. Sometimes the human brain just craved meandering discussion. Otacon was more than guilty of this, he realized. There were moments between missions or destinations where they bounced questions and topics back and forth like ping pong balls. Everything from their traumatic childhoods to what the best Duran Duran song was (Otacon said it was obviously “Hungry Like the Wolf” while Snake insisted “View to a Kill” was superior) was on the table for discussion.

The point was that it wasn’t completely out of line for Snake to bring up such a sentimental topic of conversation. Otacon was more curious about why he had chosen to bring it up while they were both reclined in bed together in a motel.

The occasion was something one might read about in a paperback romance novel while lounging poolside somewhere. It begged to be the starting point for some kind of confession scene (“The most beautiful thing I’ve seen? Look in a mirror and you’ll find it” or something like that).

But that wasn’t what either of them had defaulted to.

Instead of seizing the opportunity to flirt, they’d answered honestly. If they’d had been characters in a movie or story, Otacon imagined that people would sigh in annoyance at the completely anticlimactic nature of their chat.

Yet, for some reason, that didn’t bother him.

“You know, we are both _very good_ at asking completely random questions,” Otacon offered. He shifted position in the bed than allowed him to lean over Snake, who was still laying supine beside him. “I guess that’s just another thing we have in common.”

“It is?” Snake asked.

“Remember Shadow Moses?” Otacon asked. “At the elevator shaft.”

That’s right. They’d been through this before.

When Otacon had asked Snake if he thought love could bloom on a battlefield, they were both covered in grime and standing on a rickety platform in a freezing-cold tower. It was the exact opposite of a romantic setting, and yet, Otacon had confronted him with the most intimate question he’d ever asked another human being in that very spot.

Yet, Snake had answered him ... and had answered him honestly.

“Oh yeah,” the other man recalled easily. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess neither of us is a master of timing, huh?”

“True,” Otacon agreed. “Although, don’t forget, you’re the one that always keeps people waiting.”

Snake brought his hand into the air with the intent of lightly bumping Otacon on the top of the head. It was a common reprimand he used when his partner needed a wake-up call from staring at a computer screen or became lost in a cup of coffee as if he was trying to scry the future from the obsidian liquid.

This time, however, he missed his mark. His hand palm came down softly on the back of Otacon’s neck. While the force wasn’t even close to anything that could cause the other man harm, it was still strong enough that Otacon’s arms buckled, causing his weight to fall on Snake’s. Their faces, which had previously been arms-length apart, were now separated by mere inches of distance.

“Woah,” Otacon gasped, then smiled, “Easy there.”

Snake laughed. “Sorry about that.”

Neither of them moved an inch. Perhaps it was Snake’s imagination, but their faces seemed to drift even closer.

“Sorry,” Snake gasped again, his voice lowering to a whisper.

His chlorine-blue eyes flitted down to steal a glance at Otacon’s mouth before quickly flitting back up again. He swallowed; Hal smiled.

“David…what’s on your mind now?” he asked. His fingertips, flattened and padded from hours typing and fiddling with machinery, moved from the mattress to Snake’s shoulders. The thin cotton material did little to buffer the sensation.

As he cupped the swells of muscles and moved his thumbs in soothing, relaxing circles, Snake let out the slightest moan. The unseasoned listener would have called it an exhale, but Otacon knew better.

“Otacon, what are you do—”

“I asked you first,” Otacon intercepted playfully. Then, breathlessly, he repeated his question. “What are you thinking about?”

Snake swallowed thickly. “You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, I think I do,” Otacon said. “Because…we might be thinking the same thing.”

Everything else in Snake’s vision faded out. Everything except his partner’s inquisitive eyes, sunken cheeks, and parted lips. Hal was far from a supermodel, but Snake drinks in the beautiful sight. Otacon does the same, his gaze bouncing around to take in Dave’s lightly crinkled eyes, his sculpted jawline, and even the dusting of blond roots blossoming from his hairline. He scans him over completely, unable to find one sole feature he likes to focus on. He likes all of him.

“Hal…” he groaned. “I…”

“David,” he replied, low and slow, and Snake can’t resist reaching up to grab his shoulders.

This isn’t how Snake had pictured it. He’d played this moment over and over in his brain before, imagining the best-case scenarios. Both of them laying in Florida motel bed, a staticky television playing a mattress commercial in the background, the faint sound of ravenous birds cawing in the distance. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t beautiful.

But they were there. They were both present in that moment, and Snake thought in that same instant that he must be crazy for not wanting to run from it.

“Hal,” he murmured, “I think…that at any time, any place, people can fall in love with each other.”

Otacon tilted his gaze up slightly. Hopefully.

“I think love can bloom in a shed in Afghanistan, or in a tiny closet in Alaska…” he continued, his breath becoming shakier and shakier. “I think any time, any place, people can find beauty and love in something. Or someone.”

“…What about in a motel room in Florida?” Otacon asked.

Snake’s icy eyes filled with fire. “Especially there.”

With that, Snake closed the distance between them and pulled his partner under the covers.

As always, Otacon followed Snake without hesitation.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to follow more Otasune shenanigans, I'm pretty active on both Tumblr (rom-e-o) and Twitter (Ro_ToThe_Meo). Hit me up and we can Midsommar-wail about Otasune together. :)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I love you guys. See you soon. Buh-bye!


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